The Dragon Republic (The Poppy War #2) - R. F. Kuang Page 0,101

the cowards vote.”

The Republican Fleet’s subsequent skirmishes were similarly easy to the point of overkill. More often than not they took over townships and villages without a fight. A few cities put up resistance, but never to any effect. Against the combined strength of Jinzha’s Seahawks, resisters usually capitulated within half a day.

As they went north, Jinzha detached brigades, and then entire platoons, to rule over recently liberated territory. Other crews bled soldiers to man those empty ships, until several skimmers had to be grounded and left on shore because the fleet had been spread too thin.

Some of the villages they conquered didn’t put up a resistance at all, but readily joined the Republic. They sent out volunteers in boats laden with food and supplies. Hastily stitched flags bearing the colors of Dragon Province flew over city walls in a welcoming gesture.

“Look at that.” Kitay pointed. “Vaisra’s flag. Not the flag of the Republic.”

“Does the Republic even have a flag?” Rin asked.

“I’m not sure. It’s curious that they think they’re being conquered by Dragon Province, though.”

On Kitay’s advice, Jinzha placed the volunteer ships and sailors in the front of the fleet. He didn’t trust Hare Province sailors to fight on their home territory, and he didn’t want them in strategically crucial positions in case they defected. But the extra ships were, in the worst-case scenario, excellent bait. Several times Jinzha sent allied ships out first to lure townships into opening their gates before he stormed them with his warships.

For a while it seemed like they might take the entire north in one clean, unobstructed sweep. But their fortunes finally took a turn for the worse at the northern border of Hare Province when a massive thunderstorm forced them to make anchor in a river cove.

The storm wasn’t so much dangerous as it was boring. River storms, unlike ocean storms, could just be waited out if they grounded ships. So for three days the troops holed up belowdecks, playing cards and telling stories while rain battered at the hull.

“In the north they still offer divine sacrifices to the wind.” The Kingfisher’s first mate, a gaunt man who had been at sea longer than Jinzha had been alive, had become the favorite storyteller of the mess. “In the days before the Red Emperor, the Khan of the Hinterlands sent down a fleet to invade the Empire. But a magician summoned a wind god to create a typhoon to destroy the Khan’s fleet, and the Khan’s ships turned to splinters in the ocean.”

“Why not sacrifice to the ocean?” asked a sailor.

“Because oceans don’t create storms. This was a god of the wind. But wind is fickle and unpredictable, and the gods have never taken lightly to being summoned by the Nikara. The moment the Khan’s fleet was destroyed, the wind god turned on the Nikara magician who had summoned him. He pulled the magician’s village into the sky and dropped it down in a bloody rain of ripped houses, crushed livestock, and dismembered children.”

Rin stood up and quietly left the mess.

The passageways belowdecks were eerily quiet. Absent was the constant grinding sound of men working the paddle wheels. The crew and soldiers were concentrated in the mess, if they weren’t sleeping, and so the passage was empty except for her.

When she pressed her face to the porthole she saw the storm raging outside, the vicious waves swirling about the cove like eager hands reaching to rip the fleet apart. In the clouds she thought she saw two eyes—bright, cerulean, maliciously intelligent.

She shivered. She thought she heard laughter in the thunder. She thought she saw a hand reach from the skies.

Then she blinked, and the storm was just a storm.

She didn’t want to be alone, so she ventured downstairs to the soldiers’ cabins, where she knew she could find the Cike.

“Hello there.” Baji waved her inside. “Nice of you to join.”

She sat down cross-legged beside him. “What are you playing?”

Baji tossed a handful of dice into a cup. “Divisions. Ever played?”

Rin thought briefly back to Tutor Feyrik, the man who had gotten her to Sinegard, and his unfortunate addiction to the game. She smiled wistfully. “Just a bit.”

Nominally, no gambling of any kind was permitted on the ships. Lady Yin Saikhara, since her pilgrimage to the west, had instituted strict rules about vices such as drinking, smoking, gambling, and consorting with prostitutes. Almost everyone ignored them. Vaisra never enforced them.

It turned out to be a rather vicious game. Ramsa kept accusing Baji of cheating.